Just Cause 5 Is Unlikely – Here’s Why the Creator Says the Fire Must Return

Just Cause 5 Is Unlikely, Says Creator – And His Candid Rationale Reveals a Deeper Industry Problem

Cristofer Sundberg, the outspoken co-founder and longtime creative spark behind the Just Cause series, doesn’t expect a fifth mainline entry from Avalanche Studios. Since leaving the company in late 2020 to found his new outfit, Liquid Swords, Sundberg has teased a crime-driven open world project with a first look last year and a short in-engine clip recently – the kind of tough, systemic sandbox he believes game development needs more of. His latest remarks on X, however, focused on his old studio, and they were both frank and sobering.

According to Sundberg, Just Cause 5 is a long shot. His reasoning isn’t a dramatic bombshell so much as a reality check: the original core team has dispersed, momentum is gone, and the creative identity that made Rico Rodriguez’s sky-high chaos sing can’t simply be rebooted by committee. He also reflected on Just Cause 4, acknowledging how a drift from hands-on creative leadership to corporate duties – combined with publisher pressures and muddled team roles – dulled the series’ edge. He still sees “so much promise” in that game’s DNA, but also the missed chances.

The comments land at a turbulent time for Avalanche. Contraband, a co-op smuggling caper once pitched to Microsoft back in 2017 and ultimately signed, was canceled in August, triggering the closure of Avalanche’s Liverpool office and layoffs in Stockholm and Malmö. That blow followed earlier cuts, including the shuttering of Montréal and New York in June 2024, where around fifty roles were lost. Taken together, the studio is smaller, more cautious, and, by necessity, reassessing risk.

Risk is the thread running through Sundberg’s critique. He argues that the path forward requires finding the fire again: take big swings, irritate some folks, and build the game others think is impossible. The Just Cause fantasy – a grappling hook, wingsuit, and a world designed to be bent, broken, and surfed on a rocket-fueled storm – thrived on that attitude. When the bravado slips into safe iteration, players feel it. Some fans drifted off during Just Cause 3 and 4, calling the loop familiar and the chaos less surprising. Others counter that the series still delivers unmatched toys-and-physics mischief; they just want a bolder remix, not an annualized echo.

Commercial reality also bit hard. Just Cause 4 launched to mixed reviews and underperformed at retail; Square Enix would later admit sales didn’t recoup development costs. In hindsight, the game’s best moments – gliding over dramatic biomes, experimenting with weather systems, turning gadgets into slapstick choreography – were there, but the connective tissue around them (AI behavior, mission structure, tech stability) didn’t always keep pace. That gap between spectacular systems and the day-to-day campaign experience is exactly where risk-averse design shows.

So where does that leave the franchise? If Avalanche rebuilds, a true sequel would require more than a number on the box. It would mean a refreshed creative nucleus empowered to break its own rules, plus production room to surprise. Sundberg, meanwhile, is channeling that philosophy into Liquid Swords’ new open world – not a Just Cause retread, but a spiritual cousin in spirit: crime, consequence, and player-driven chaos. The ten seconds we’ve seen are a tease, but the pitch is clear: fewer compromises, sharper identity.

The truth nobody loves to hear: sometimes a beloved series needs to rest precisely so its defining ideas can come back sharper elsewhere. Whether Avalanche eventually rekindles Rico’s fireworks or a spiritual successor steals the spotlight, the lesson from Sundberg’s candor is simple and timely. Franchises don’t die because they run out of explosions; they fade when they run out of nerve.